By KYIV. Dec 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – G7 finance ministers on Thursday confirmed a joint approach to coordinated budgetary and economic support to Ukraine next year and announced the mobilization of up to $32 billion already and continued efforts to further progress in this direction, calling on Ukraine and the IMF to conclude a program with funding as soon as possible.
"We are prepared to do more as needed on budget and economic support in addition to our military, humanitarian, development cooperation, and early-recovery support. We also strongly encourage other donors to step up their support," G7 finance ministers said in a statement on Thursday.
They clarified that this amount includes EUR 18 billion from the EU, complemented by a grant component from Member States to cover interest costs, and another very significant support package by the United States as proposed by the Biden administration and which could be approved by the U.S. Congress later this week (earlier, Minister of Finance of Ukraine Serhiy Marchenko voiced $9.9 billion for the first nine months). In addition, additional budgetary support for 2023 is being prepared by Japan.
The Ministers recalled that $32.7 billion of budget support had been mobilized for Ukraine in 2022 to help close the funding gap, and these funds had now been disbursed or were in the process of being disbursed.
Additional support to Ukrainian authorities, state-owned enterprises and the private sector through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation and the European Investment Bank amounts to $6.7 billion. The aforementioned support is in addition to ongoing G7 military, humanitarian, development cooperation, export finance and early-recovery support to Ukraine, the statement notes.
"We support the IMF’s close engagement with Ukraine and strongly welcome the IMF Program Monitoring with Executive Board Involvement to help Ukraine develop and adhere to a consistent macroeconomic framework, enhance governance and transparency and identify financing needs," the ministers said.
"We urge the IMF and Ukraine to make swift progress towards agreement on and delivery of a credible, ambitious, fully financed and appropriately conditioned IMF program as soon as possible in 2023," the statement notes.
